20 years after the deaths of Zyed and Bouna, for Dominique de Villepin, "the same fractures remain"
Prime Minister at the time of Zyed and Bouna's deaths in 2005, Dominique de Villepin commemorated this Sunday two "victims of segregation and the abandonment of the Republic."
By Le Parisien with AFPTwenty years after the deaths of Zyed and Bouna in Clichy-sous-Bois , which triggered a wave of riots, the Prime Minister at the time,Dominique de Villepin, believes that "the same fractures remain" and calls for "restoring confidence in public speech."
"For twenty years I have been trying to understand what generates such fractures and leads to such tragedies. And I realize, with great concern, that we still persist in denial and abandonment," wrote Dominique de Villepin in a seven-page statement, recalling that he had been "Prime Minister for five months when two children of France died, victims of segregation and the abandonment of the Republic."
On October 27, 2005, after being chased by police officers, Bouna Traoré, 15 , and Zyed Benna, 17, hid in an EDF site and were electrocuted there, leading to a wave of riots throughout the country.
"Since that day, I have become convinced that the balance of the Nation can only be born from the truth, because it alone guarantees justice," continues Dominique de Villepin, deeming it "essential to restore confidence in public speech." "The truth is not a political risk: it is the very condition of democratic exercise," he asserts.
He acknowledges that "by taking up erroneous information from the Ministry of the Interior too quickly, out of concern for government unity, we have contributed to weakening confidence in public discourse."
And he also points out, in an allusion to Nicolas Sarkozy, "certain public remarks - the Kärcher, the scum " which "may have hurt, stirring up resentment, as if the Republic were reducing some of its children to a problem to be solved."
Calling for "lessons to be learned from these tragedies," he emphasized that "the 2005 riots revealed a two-speed France: on the one hand, territories where the Republic continues to be embodied; on the other, areas where it is no more than a word, a concept, an abstract idea, and too often, a constraint."
"Twenty years later, the same fractures remain. It is not the lack of resources that is lacking, but the overall vision, the consistency and the coherence," he considers, referring to the Yellow Vests in 2018, which "expressed another revolt, different in its form, but similar in its thrust: the feeling of abandonment," and the riots following the death of young Nahel , in 2023.
"If the same causes produce the same effects, it is because the Republic has not been able to repair its political and social contract," believes the former Prime Minister, for whom "the tragedy of Zyed and Bouna is the tragedy of a French youth who only asked to be recognized and respected as such."
Le Parisien
